Windows

Linux

Unmount the floppy drive to be sure the data is written on the floppy disk.

Note: If you are using an USB floppy drive the output file is /dev/sda or similar rather than /dev/fd0. For a way to find out the right name using the mount command see Super Grub USB Disk.

How to make a Super Grub Disk USB.

Note: With this method you do NOT delete anyone of your pendrive contents. This method needs a Linux working system... if you do not have one you can use a SGD cdrom or floppy or even use a live cd to follow the instructions from there.

I am going to use pendrive as a synonym for USB Flash Drive, USB Hard Disk, USB Hard Drive and so on.

Gnome

Unmount and unplug your pendrive device.

Open a terminal and run:

mount

Insert your pendrive. A window with pendrive contents should open.

mount

Now in the mount output you should see one more line than in the first run of mount:

Now we have learned that the USB device is called: /dev/sdb1 (From now on... you should continue the howto with your own USB device which might be /dev/sda1 or something similar).

Get the Super Grub Disk USB tar.
Untar it in a temporary folder.
Copy and paste the boot folder found in the USB tar so that when opening your pendrive you see: boot (You should not see super_grub_disk_0.9753 or something similar).

Close the pendrive window

Find your pendrive icon in your Desktop.

Right-click on it

Select Umount. Do not select Safe Extraction!!!

Get root permissions on the terminal

sudo -i # in ubuntu
su - # In other systems

sync

Now we will use the /dev/sdb (/dev/sdb is ther hard disk where /dev/sdb1 partition is located) device in grub to associate a virtual grub device (hd3) to it and work with it.

grub
grub>device (hd3) /dev/sdb
grub>root (hd3,0)
grub>setup (hd3)

You should see some messages with perhaps some normal errors.

grub>quit
sync

You can now unplug your pendrive.

KDE

Unmount and unplug your pendrive device.

Open a terminal and run:

mount

Insert your pendrive. When asked what to do with new pendrive. Click on Open.

A window with pendrive contents should open.

mount

Now in the mount output you should see one more line than in the first run of mount:

Now we have learned that the USB device is called: /dev/sdb1 (From now on... you should continue the howto with your own USB device which might be /dev/sda1 or something similar).

Get the Super Grub Disk USB tar.
Untar it in a temporary folder.
Copy and paste the boot folder found in the USB tar so that when opening your pendrive you see: boot (You should not see super_grub_disk_0.9753 or something similar).

Close the pendrive window

Find your pendrive icon in Konqueror -> Click on Show Panel if need -> Left Side Bar -> System -> "Saving" Devices

Right-click on it

Select Umount. Do not select Safe Extraction!!!

Get root permissions on the terminal

sudo -i # in ubuntu
su - # In other systems

sync

Now we will use the /dev/sdb1 in grub to associate a virtual grub device (hd3) and work with it.

grub
grub>device (hd3) /dev/sdb
grub>root (hd3,0)
grub>setup (hd3)

You should see some messages with perhaps some normal errors.

grub>quit
sync

You can now unplug your pendrive.

Common errors

Some installations in pendrive conflict. Most of them derive from the cylinder BIOS problem.

If you were doing:

grub>root (hd3,0)
grub>setup (hd3)

and after that you got an error 18 or something similar you should:

Backup all data on your pendrive (if there is something important ;) )

Repartition it so that you have an ext3 or a FAT32 partition at its beginning of only 300 MB.

Install SGD into it as it is explained in the instructions

and that's it, SGD should boot without problems.

In the rest of the pendrive you can create a FAT32 or an ext3 partition for putting data.

Windows

Run Unetbootin. Select Distribution, and from the drop down menu select "Super Grub Disk"

Select the target drive, and hit OK.

Fedora users readme

This message has to be read by Fedora, Redhat or Fedora based distribution users. This section might also apply to Mandriva but I am not sure. (If you are a Mandriva user and you try it please report to the forum).